Wow...I am behind.  I have a quite a few pictures that I took these past couple of weeks, but I don't really remember the days I might have missed, so instead of labeling the days, I'll just post a bunch of pictures for your enjoyment.

I LOVE Kansas sunsets.  It truly amazes me the beauty that the Lord created for us to enjoy.  Looking at that picture just lifts my spirit!

Junior reading to Bubba amongst the pillow fort they designed.

The "present" Sky left for us one morning.  She had it in her dog house for a while.  She must be pretty lonely if she's willing to snuggle with a dead rodent.  We have been looking at getting another dog for her to have a companion.  It is weird only having one dog on the farm.  It has been nice not having the high feed bill for them in the winter though...not gonna lie about that! 

The girls playing on our bookshelf.  It's a built in shelf so I don't worry about it falling on them.  Now, them falling off, that's another story.  I will report that no injuries occurred during this creative playtime.

Homemade tortilla wraps.  The worked in a pinch for lunch time one day, but not my favorite recipe for tortilla wraps. 

We survived our first sleepover.  The boys had three of their friends over.  By the time everyone was in bed, only one friend remained.  The other two went back home.  It was everyone's first sleepover experience and we had a blast.

Bubba and Monkey.  Look at Monkey's chunky thighs!  When Monkey was younger he looked a lot like Bubba, but the older he gets he looks like Junior and Junebug. 

Bubba's school work.  Most children probably color a pig pink since that's what the majority of storybook show.  Not my children.  They think pigs should be black when the color.  I remember Junebug was coloring and was learning the color pink.  She was suppose to color everything on the page pink.  It was a flower, a dress, and a pig.  She colored the pig black even though she was suppose to color it pink.  Oh children, they can be so funny.

Monkey looks good in hats.

Monkey is pulling himself up to stand all the time now.  Just this morning he was standing in the dining room under the table holding onto Junior's chair.  He got so mad cause he didn't know what to do afterwards.  He wasn't stuck but he sure was mad.

Those are the pictures over the past couple weeks.  Hopefully I do better in February for picture taking.  We have a busy weekend planned...don't we always?  We will be purchasing a wood burning stove tonight and B will be installing that hopefully on Saturday, but most likely into Sunday.  We will also be getting firewood.  By we I mean the older boys.  With the temperatures struggling to get above freezing this weekend I don't think little man would like being outside.  With this extremely cold weather we are having our propane tank is draining quickly.  The price of propane is ridiculous...as in it would cost us nearly $1,000 to top off our propane tank...about 300 gallons worth.  We don't have that kind of cash sitting around.  So, we will buy a stove and parts to fix the chainsaw and still have money in our pockets. 

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

T

I'm behind...on everything.  That's just how life is right now.  I'm behind on laundry, cleaning the house, projects, taking pictures, school work, and planning my garden.  Maybe this weekend I will get up what pictures I did take these last two weeks, but I'm not gonna promise anything.  I always wondered why on blogs that I read that it would be a week or more between posts and I could never understand why they couldn't write something up more often.  I get it now.  Life is BUSY!  And for those bloggers who do post every day...I don't know how you do it .  They must be more organized than I am.

I took these pictures last week of the three pigs we have in our garden.  I didn't take a before picture when we first put them in there towards the end of November, but they have made amazing progress in it.  I pray that we have a great gardening season because of their help.  Their little snouts dig and root all around, shoving hay this way and that way.  Since these pictures have been taken we have added more hay and we hope to add in some more compost before we move them over to garden plot number two.

Garden weather is on hold for the next week.  Our 60+ degree weather we had this weekend is gone and frigid Old Man Winter had returned.  Good news is that I hear there are only 51 days left of winter...trying to find the positives in life!

Have a great Tuesday

T

I didn't do the best this week getting pictures taken.  And I still didn't get one this week of Bubba.  That boy likes to sit in his underwear all day if I let him so it's hard to take a picture of him.  Bubba did lose his second bottom tooth this week and his permanent teeth are waiting to push into the open space.  Both of the older boys have had their permanent teeth come in behind their baby teeth before they even fall out.

I missed January 11, but here is the rest of the week.

January 12
This past summer when all the tomatoes ripened and I went out of town my dear hubby packaged them up into freezer bags and placed them in the freezer.  I ran out of spaghetti sauce in the pantry so I pulled out several bags and made fresh sauce and canned them.  Spaghetti is an easy meal around here.  Out of 30 lbs of tomatoes I got five quarts of sauce and three pints of tomato juice.

January 13
How my kitchen looks in the morning after going to bed at 1am after piecing out two deer.  I had spent the whole weekend in the kitchen doing tomatoes and venison.  I didn't care if there was a mess left in my kitchen.

January 14
Monkey is like the girls life sized baby doll.

January 15
Girls day out.  Junebug and Pipsqueak went out to lunch and shopping with B's mom.  They each took their own purses with $2 in them.  They each came home with a new baby doll and money still left in their purses. 

January 16
Moon coming up as the sun goes down.

January 17
Chocolate chip pancakes with almond slices and oatmeal added.  Very filling!

January 18
Kansas sunset

T

I just love the site Pinterest.  There are so many cool finds on there.  Stuff for the home, recipes, ideas to help with raising children, home school resources, farm how-to's, and more than I have time for DIY projects.

I'm going to share some of my recent finds that I have tried or will be doing in the near future.  Click on the pictures and it will take you to the site that created it.

This was a big hit with the children.  Everyone loved it and Junebug loved breaking the lasagna noodles into small pieces.  Click on the picture to go to the site for the recipe.

Junior is reading Little House In The Big Woods and this will be one of many projects we will do for this book.  He loves to read and only reading a couple of chapters a day is torture to him!

I started one of these for Junebug's birthday but had sewing machine issues and this got busy with the holidays, but my goal is to get this done before the end of January.  I now have a solid table to sew on so hopefully I can get it done before the warm weather strikes again.

These are the best hamburger buns ever!  I put all the ingredients in my bread machine.  Roll them out, let them rise for 10 minutes, and bake for 10-12 minutes and done.  They don't crumble apart and are super soft.  I make mine with our own fresh ground wheat.

The girls are always wanting to do school when the boys are so I came up with this fun activity for them.  We have been reading the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  I cut out and laminated two big mittens that they "sewed" together using yarn.  Then they colored the pictures of the different animals that were in the story that shared the mitten and stuffed them inside.  They enjoyed the activity, but it was a bit time consuming.

I hope to build one of these this year, or should I say, have B build one of these for our chicks.

Who doesn't love getting mail?  I will probably hang these on Command hooks on their doors since they share rooms. 

And last, but not least a little humor.  B and I make this face a lot  :-)

Have a happy Thursday!

T

One of my goals for this year is to take more pictures.  I have plenty of opportunities to take pictures, but most of the time I let them slip by.  Not this year.  When I was a new Mom to Junior, B would tease me that I took so many pictures that it looked like a film was playing.  His arm moved a little in this picture, now his leg in the next.  Now that I am a mom to five, I rarely pick up the camera.  With each new child. fewer and fewer pictures are being taken.  I remember hearing that it would happen and I didn't believe it...well I believe it now.  So, for 2014 I will take one picture a day of something.  It could be the children, our house, farm, animals, etc.  Out of the first ten days, I missed three days.  Not bad I suppose for someone who isn't in the habit of taking pictures.  I leave the camera in an easy to reach place and hope that it will help me to remember.  Here are the first seven pictures in 2014.

January 2
Junebug after dinner. 

January 4
My heart shaped birthday cake with lots of sprinkles.

January 5
They love sitting on daddy.

January 6
Sky and Monkey.  Monday was -14 outside, which is cold for Kansas and our dog Sky wanted to come in and warm up.  She just loves the children and they love her too.  Ignore the child with the red underwear in the background. 
And for the animal lovers out there, Sky has a very warm, heated dog house with lots of hay to keep her warm.  The only thing that was cold on her that morning were her ears.

January 7
Happy Anniversary to my husband of 8 years!  No picture of us, but a cute one of Monkey.

January 9
1/2 of a clean kitchen.  Having a larger kitchen is a great thing for our family, but all of the extra counter space leaves me room to spread out my mess.

January 10
Monkey has learned how to stand up in his crib so we had to drop his mattress one level.  He was so proud of himself.  You can't help but smile when you see that face!

January 1st and 3rd are missing pictures as I was in bed nearly the whole day with a sore back.  Coughing for a week while we were sick with the flu damaged my back and I was laid up.  Thank goodness for the awesome husband I have who stepped in and did a wonderful job being Mr. Mom.  January 8th I was at an auction spending way to much money, but got some great deals. 

Have a great weekend!
T

P.S. I am now realizing that in the first 10 days of the year I took no pictures of Bubba or Pipsqueak.  I'll make sure they are both included in the next round of 365 in 2014.

Happy New Year family and friends!  I've created this little blog, not so much for the strangers of the Internet world or for family and friends to follow along with us, but for me to journal and remember all of the exciting and maybe not so exciting things that happen to us on our little homestead.  I'm hoping that by writing about our journey several things will happen.  First, that I'll pick up the camera more to record our moments, whether they are us out in the pig pen, pulling weeds, bucking bales, or school work I want to remember it.  Second, that we can learn from what we are doing this year and what we have done in the past.  I have a terrible memory.  Terrible.  Little children do that to you.  The last thing I hope we get from this blog is a sense of accomplishment.  B and I have a tendency to feel like we get nothing done.  We start projects and then something else comes up and we move on to another and another, while never going back and finishing what we originally started.  I hope we get lots of projects checked off our list this year.  I will write them down, but not yet.

I have goals for this year, personal goals, goals for my children, goals for the school room, goals for the farm, goals for the garden, goals for my pantry.  No resolutions, just an overall life change.  I'll write in details about my goals for each section of my life. 

Check out my about page (not quite complete, but when the flu strikes the week you are working on getting your blog set up by the "planned" start date, you just go with it.)  It will get finished...in time.

I hope you have fun following along on our journey and I promise there will be pictures in the next post!

T